Boswell's "Free Lunch"

Over at the Washington Times editorial page, somebody felt it was time to throw some cold water on the idea of bringing a baseball team back to Washington, D.C. -- and the target of their ire is Washington Post columnist Tom Boswell, and in particular his column from last Friday where he soft soaped the tax increases that would be needed in order to pay for a new baseball park:

To hear sports columnist Thomas Boswell tell it, economist Milton Friedman, a Nobel laureate, got it all wrong.

Mr. Friedman, who has been studying economics for nearly three-quarters of a century, has famously quipped: "There is no such thing as a free lunch." In his Friday column in The Washington Post, however, Mr. Boswell essentially claims to have found the very free lunch that has eluded Mr. Friedman for decades.

Mr. Boswell waxes enthusiastically about how the financially strapped District can rather easily underwrite a substantial portion of the costs of a state-of-the-art ballpark to entice the Montreal baseball franchise to the nation's capital.

Depending upon its location, the ballpark could cost nearly $550 million and, in other cities, the public has generally borne 50 percent to 75 percent of the cost, Mr. Boswell says. Never mind that underneath Mr. Boswell's own nose, Redskins owner Jack Kent Cooke and Wizards/Capitals owner Abe Pollin built their sports palaces with their own money, accepting only infrastructure improvements that were appropriately financed with public funds.

The only taxes that would need to be raised, Mr. Boswell says, are those "taxes related to baseball, which would not exist unless baseball came to town." (We could not have said it better.)

Whether you agree or disagree with the Times (and this free market sports fan agrees), it does point up the fact that the Post has more or less been an uncritical booster of the effort to bring a team to the District of Columbia.

For some time now, I've completely discounted the chance of the Expos moving to Virginia for just one reason: I can't fathom any way how Virginia Governor Mark Warner could justify diverting public monies to build a stadium and the related infrastructure required to support it while the state is facing a significant budgetary shortfall. Politically, it's a non-starter as well, as Warner would be sure to come under withering attack from Republicans in the state legislature.

Unfrotunately for the folks in the District, the tradition of fiscal responsibility so firmly entrenched in Virginia simply doesn't exist there. That's good news if you want a baseball team here; but potentially bad news if you're a taxpayer.

POSTSCRIPT: For future reference, you can find the Post's special online section on the quest to bring baseball back to Washington by clicking here. Though the Times doesn't have their own special section, here's a link to a search in their archives on the terms, "Washington Baseball."

Eric 02:20 PM

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